


The Sun Will Rise

by LovelyToTheBone



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: 74th Hunger Games, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Book/Movie 1: The Hunger Games, Dissociation, F/M, Ficlet, Grief/Mourning, Implied Sexual Content, Major Character Injury, Mention of blood, One Shot, Sad with a Happy Ending, Suicide, painful but I promise the end is happy!, very brief and not graphic, which is non graphic because its nightlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-22 10:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22562128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyToTheBone/pseuds/LovelyToTheBone
Summary: “Peeta, it’s over.” I croak. “Peeta, look, the sun is rising.”Peeta is still. Utterly still.[Prompt from #ToastedTHG a 2019 fandom reread on tumblr: What if Peeta died on the Cornucopia?]
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 29
Kudos: 112
Collections: Last Breath





	The Sun Will Rise

**Author's Note:**

> I posed the prompt what if Peeta died on the Cornucopia in chapter 25? I promise this is worth the read, pain with a happy ending which was not my original plan. I wanted to go for a straight up star crossed lovers angle with Katniss taking nightlock and the Capitol reviving Peeta who then ends his life after learning she nightlocked. As I was writing it took it’s own path so I gave in and I'm very happy with it. Big thank you to jennajuicebox, mrsbonniemellark, plus rosegardeninwinter's mini boost.

_Peeta begins to doze off now, and each time he does, I find myself yelling his name louder and louder because if he goes and dies on me now, I know I’ll go completely insane. He’s fighting it, probably more for me than for him, and it’s hard because unconsciousness would be its own form of escape. But the adrenaline pumping through my body would never allow me to follow him, so I can’t let him go. I just can’t._

_The only indication of the passage of time lies in the heavens, the subtle shift of the moon. So Peeta begins pointing it out to me, insisting I acknowledge its progress and sometimes, for just a moment I feel a flicker of hope before the agony of the night engulfs me again._

Finally, I hear the boom of Cato’s cannon. I open my eyes. Pale light creeps up the horizon, an eerie contrast to the dark horror it is chasing away. I cannot feel my face, my fingers are almost numb, so I use my voice to wake Peeta.

“Peeta, it’s over.” I croak. “Peeta, look, the sun is rising.”

I shift to see his face and find that he is already looking at me. Lips parted as if to speak but no sound comes. The iciness of my skin seeps into my veins, a flood of fright. No sound is going to come I realize, because no puffs of air pass his parted lips. No longer do I feel the slight pressure of rising and falling with his chest. I am tumbling from my own form.

Peeta is still. Utterly still.

For a moment I am glacial. Body, mind, and heart.

A cannon booms. _No!_

I jerk upwards but am trapped against him, zipped inside his jacket. I shriek and wrest, maneuvering my arm down and out to yank the zipper but I can’t get it. I can’t get the zipper.

I’m panicking now, my breath comes in harsh choking gasps, punctuated by broken syllables of Peeta’s name. I twist my back to his front, grab the hem at either side of the zipper and tear it apart, a guttural grunt exploding from me.

Up on my knees I can see how bloodless his face is, my shins and knees soaking up all that should be pumping through his veins at this moment. My fault. I need to get his blood back inside. How can I get his blood back inside? I can’t. But the Capitol has ways.

“Help!” I howl into the crisp silence, twisting and turning, searching for a hovercraft that should have already appeared. Nothing.

I demand Peeta to wake. Shake him and beg for him to hold on. I pound the cornucopia next to his ears, shout in his face. I cradle his head to my chest and assure him the hovercraft will arrive soon.

Trumpets blare. An announcement booms.

All I register is the absence of Peeta’s breath.

“Peeta.” I coo, voice cracking, my filthy hands frame his jaw. They look wrong there. All wrong to touch him after failing him. I didn’t protect him. I was supposed to protect him. He needs me to protect him.

“Help! Save him!” I shriek wildly, face thrown up at the ever lightening sky. “You said we both could win!”

No hovercraft appears.

“Peeta.” A raw, keening whimper crawls out as my forehead falls to his. My body vibrates with the violent shaking of my head. “No. No, no, no, no.” My groaning grows, builds to mewls until I hear an echoed concord. The mockingjays melodize my mourning, the plain deadened with our trill of grief, despite the heavens onward shift of the new dawn.

I slide my hands up, thumbs gliding the crest of his cheekbones, index fingers following the delicate skin behind his jaw up the soft curve of his ears, dragging across his temples and sweeping under his eyes. This is the only time I will feel the gentle tickle of his ridiculously long lashes. I’m transfixed as they begin to glow in the rising light. His irises so blue like the crystallized sugar sticks from the sweet shop.

I allow the pads of my thumbs to rub the curve of his nose over and over and over before one sinks to rest in the fleshy cleft above his cupids bow. His lips normally the color of spun sugar, now nearly as pale as his face. As my thumb tugs it upwards, the molding of it reminds me how it felt molded between my own lips.

Then something bizarre happens. It’s as if I’m watching images of a different life flash by; a life not yet lived. Peeta through a window, the flex and ripple of his shoulders and arms as he kneads dough, my hesitant knock on the door with one fist and the other gripping a gift of fresh game. Peeta across a chessboard from Haymitch, a special look of concentration upon his face. Ashy waves glinting in gold morning light as Peeta digs up the ground at the side of a house. Peeta’s hands as he sketches in my family’s plant book in a fading soft orange glow. Traipsing through the blooming meadow hand in hand with Peeta, a dandelion clasped between our palms. Peeta’s face upside down, inches below mine as he floats on his back in my father’s lake. Moonlight spilling in an open window across Peeta’s features, his chest beneath my hands as I move above him. Peeta’s fingers feeding me bits of cheese filled bread. Peeta in predawn darkness pulling on clothes, kneeling down to double knot his shoelaces. Peeta’s laugh booming over my squeals as I catch him giving chase over my shoulder. A loaf of bread between our knees at a hearth, warm slices flecked with raisins and nuts held to one another’s mouths. A tender weight cradled upon my forearms, my notes lulling her crystallized sugar blue eyes, _“And when again they open, the sun will rise…”_. Peeta’s sweet smile at a girl two dark braids, dotting paint to his nose. The length of Peeta’s body molded against mine, arms wrapping the curves of my belly, palms absorbing the thumps from within.

I break; every fiber of me lanced, blood roars in my skull, my skin is an outgrown coat constricting my splintered self. I float.

I kiss the tip of his nose in repayment, press my mouth to his forehead once more just for me, peck the sting behind his ear, and ghost my lips where once a red weal stood, proof of his purity.

A shadow falls over us.

I’m nuzzling him all over now, every part of Peeta I can reach, his chest, his shoulders, his neck, his ears, his cheeks, his nose, his lips. Damp trails streak us both. I root for the pouch, pluck just one.

A boom of orders.

I nestle firmly on top of Peeta, burrow my face in his neck then drag my mouth to his and whisper my final words. “Stay with me.” Sealing them with a kiss. I pull away just enough to bring my pinched fingers between our mouths, push the berry in and swallow. My eyes find his, one last image of beauty to take with me.

Thuds. Pounding.

The agony flickers out.

I open my eyes; pale light rises up just beyond the willow tree I lie under. I feel the subtle pressure of rising and falling. The warmth and safety of strong steady arms. I shift to see the face and find that he is already looking at me. Lips parted, rewarding me with a hint of white teeth. He looks so clean and healthy and beautiful. I take his hand, holding on tightly, assured that I will never have to let go.

**Author's Note:**

> You can be mad at me for this one since I came up with the idea. Come yell at me on tumblr @lovely-tothe-bone
> 
> Also if you click over to the collection you'll find Grace_D's take.


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